When I was editor of the Cape Times and decided in 1998 to launch a project called “One City, Many Cultures”, I knew that I needed the best people to work on it. It was going to be an editorial project for which I was going to hire some of the best writers and photographers […]
2009
Posted inLifestyle
Road rage and mating lions
“How long does it take to look at a bladdy lion?” The tannie in the double cab is not happy. Her gold bracelets are jingling with indignation in time with the krr-krr-krr of the diesel engine. She must be in her 40s, overweight, hard-faced but still glamorous, and she clearly doesn’t take kak from anyone. […]
Posted inLifestyle
Thank you for saving my life, Percy
I’d like to make a moment, if you’ll permit me, to offer thanks to the memory of Percy Shaw, a Yorkshireman from the town of Halifax. I don’t know if he was an especially upstanding or moral man, whether he was kind to others or donated a fortune to charity. What I do know is […]
Posted inLifestyle
A tale of two men
The South African In a rural village in the Eastern Cape, a young boy runs after a plane dropping election pamphlets. It’s 1994 in the new South Africa and everyone is excited about change and the future. This boy from a rural village, inspired by the plane in the sky, messes around in the simple […]
Posted inLifestyle
Germany’s green energy revolution
There has been a lot of noise lately regarding renewable energy and the lead up to the United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently signed an executive order to increase California’s renewable energy mix to 30% by 2020. He has finally managed to prove there is something more bizarre than a bodybuilding governor […]
Posted inGeneral
Africa, the motherland
We must not ridicule nor confuse genuine emotional responses with ignorance when African Americans first land here. The ignorant ones are those amongst us who so readily dismiss this response without a moment’s pause to consider or understand the reason for the reaction. (For a while, I was in this number. I too used to […]
Posted inGeneral
Ties in the rain: A history of the C-word
By Peter Church In 1992, the Sydney rain came down on a gutsy SA cricket team’s bid to win the prestigious Cricket World Cup. When Brian McMillan and Dave Richardson returned to the centre, the revised target left them with 22 runs to score off 1 ball! Since that day, the Competition Curse has consistently […]
Posted inGeneral
Jokes put the ridiculous side of religion(s) into perspective
“I got this cool joke,” I said as a group of us Scrabblers sat and sipped our coffees after an exhausting round of Scrabble at the coffee shop on Fish Hoek beach some years back. “A long time ago a Jewish couple had a baby and the father, Giuseppe, especially wanted to know what career […]
Posted inGeneral
Viva Dirtbin!
There’s this turf war going on. Cape Town versus Durban. Peeps are getting fired up, calling each other out and throwing down with the insults, the stereotypes and the cliches. Getting red in the face, tapping away on keyboards, ringing up the papers. Claiming this place is a dump or that place is a shithole. […]
Posted inNews/Politics
We must resist the hypnotic allure of populist politics
Politics have existed for as long as social classes became pronounced in every fabric of human existence. During the aristocratic age the privileged minorities presided over those considered lowly in the pecking order of society while under democracy we have been duped to believe that the lowly masses exercise power through their elected representatives. Democracy […]
Posted inGeneral
ANC’s Twelve Days of Christmas
Seems as if every day is Christmas in the new South Africa so why not celebrate it? South Africa’s Twelve Days of Christmas On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me: A medical parole sans amnesty On the second day of Christmas my true love sent to me: Two police stays […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The media invented Malema
Julius Malema is fast becoming a national treasure: the pantomime’s grand dame of South African politics. He is also, unwittingly, a fabulous source of national unity: he draws us all altogether in mirth, condemnation and embarrassment. Yet, I am convinced the media have, largely, invented Malema’s personae with our connivance. It is a shame that […]